<p>I am a freshman in college now, I would like to transfer. I didn't do that well in HS but I manage to get my IB diploma. My SAT's were bad. MY college GPA is 3.8. I moved alone to another country for 11th and 12th grade. My father died two years after I met him and I went abroad the following year. Before I left home, my dad's brother died too. So I didn't even recover from my dady's death that I lost another relative. In addition to cultural adjusment and Language problems, can I explain their death as a reason of my poor perfomance? I always tried to keep my emotion so I don't the college to think that I was so weak I couldn't even cope with the events.
Thanks for reading this</p>
<p>With an IB diploma and a college GPA of 3.8 you're all set. The new college won't care about the SAT scores of a non-native speaker.</p>
<p>yes, its a emotional reason and they adcoms are human you know..</p>
<p>I think so.</p>
<p>Death of a parent is one of very few things that might cause a college to overlook grades, especially since you have a good college GPA.</p>
<p>BigIs, unless you know something I don't, I disagree with you. Colleges will care about SATs: maybe even more for internationals (?). OP, I'd think about retaking those SATs. You could probably do better than you did, and poor scores will hurt you.</p>
<p>Also, it's extremely important that you explain the situation in your essay: you can mention it under "why do you want to transfer" if you like, something about how your father's death kept you from doing as well as you knew you could in high school and hampered your college opportunities. Or anywhere else.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>In general, the rule of thumb about questions like this is as follows: Is this within the normal range of adversity for high school students, or outside it?</p>
<p>I had one student who wanted to use her mother's arthritis as an excuse for a C in Biology. Her mother's arthritis was legitimately terrible and it did put some strain on their whole family, but the sickness of a family member is obviously within the normal range of life issues for a high school student. Most high school students have to go through something as difficult or more difficult, and many keep their grades up anyway.</p>
<p>But most students do not have to cope with the loss of an immediate family member, so your story really does explain your poor performance.</p>
<p>First of all, my condolences to you and your loved ones. Death is never something to be brushed away carelessly.</p>
<p>Second of all, colleges do view death as usually a decent excuse. I know of a person who got a bad case of senioritis second semester and had their acceptance to UCLA revoked. It was reinstated after he explained how his mother had died.</p>
<p>
I've already stated what I know that you don't -- transfer students, especially non-native speakers, are assessed differently than students out of HS. An IB diploma indicates achievement at a high level. The 3.8 college GPA demonstrates an ability to do college work, making the SATs irrelevant. American colleges may require a TOEFL to be sure the student has enough facility with English to do as well at their college.</p>
<p>The obsession of people on CC with "perfect" SAT scores, hiding any hint of a "less-than-perfect" score, and the need to re-take a 750 because they "know" they can do better (statistically impossible) is not shared by college admissions people. The other thing I know is a few admission folks and how they think.</p>
<p>You'll be just fine. Good job on the 3.8!</p>
<p>@BigIs, I'm not trying to step on your toes, just engage in a little friendly disagreement. I'm the director of a college prep program on the East Coast working exclusively with international students, and my experience over the last five years (in which our center has sent international students to many highly selective schools) has been that colleges do care a great deal about SATs for nonnative speakers and international students. I also know a little bit about the transfer process; I transferred to Harvard myself. Not that that makes me a total expert, but it does mean that I've navigated a competitive transfer process at least once.</p>
<p>Clearly, SATs are more important for freshman applicants, but they are typically a required part of the transfer application, and I don't think they're completely irrelevant--just less important, as you say. I guess it depends on what kcl means by "poor." I'd also suggest that how the OP's GPA will be perceived depends somewhat on where he or she is currently at school: a 3.8 at a community college or a not-very-selective state school is significantly less impressive than a 3.8 at a second-tier university. The question also depends on where he or she wants to transfer.</p>
<p>SATs still seem to be perceived by many top-tier universities as a rough index of student ability. The combo 3.8/1600 SAT, for instance, would probably suggest a hard-working student who lacked a little intellectual spark. There's no reason to retake SATs obsessively, but retaking occasionally can be a good plan, I think, even for transfer students.</p>
<p>I'm not saying you're wrong; you might be right. I'm just saying there's a bigger picture here than "Transfer students never need to retake SATs," because I don't think that's categorically true.</p>